Fortress in the Eye of Time

CHAPTER 31

In two days a Frost had come, and rimed the black slates of the Zeide roof outside Tristenʼs window. He opened it to test the strangeness of the white coating, and found the air very cold, and the Rime slick and cold and quite remarkable. People went about morning chores in his narrow view of the courtyard below and their breath made white steam. So did his own against the glass. “Look!” he said to Uwen, quite foolishly, entranced by this miracle, and Uwen looked.

“Why does it do that?” he asked Uwen, and Uwen scratched his morning-stubbled chin.

“Because itʼs cold.”

“But why?” Tristen asked.

“I canʼt say as I can answer,” Uwen said. “I canʼt say as I ever asked anybody as would know. Thatʼs wizard-question. Breathʼs warm. Horses do that when theyʼre hot.”

“Give off steam?”

“They can.”

“Thatʼs very odd,” Tristen said, and blew more steam at the glass and watched the magic instead of dressing in time for breakfast. He would have liked to ask master Emuin further about the ice and the steam, but Emuin did not wake much, except to eat, even yet, and then he had so fierce a headache Tristen wanted not to be near him. Emuin was angry at him, and upset, and would not see anyone. The priests kept praying in the shrine and called Emuinʼs getting well a miracle of the gods, but Emuin called himself damned now and said it was his own fault for coming near him again.

That stung. But he told himself Emuin didnʼt mean it that strongly, and that once Emuin was well, which Emuin would be, Emuin would be in a much better frame of mind. Meanwhile Emuin had confided in him that he was mending himself, far more slowly than he might — and that such strength as he had to spare at all, he gave to the King.

And Cefwyn was on his feet. Cefwyn was inquiring, Annas said, about the kitchens, the boys that were burned, and the whereabouts of Orien Aswydd, Idrys having told him that troubling matter and the reason of his wound not healing. Cefwyn came down the hall to visit master Emuin, using the hated stick the way Emuin peevishly said, lifting one blackened eyelid, that His Majesty should have done in the first place and not fallen down the stairs like a damned fool.

More kindly spoken, Ninévrisë came downstairs, made Cefwyn tea and fussed over him, Idrys fussed over him, Annas fussed over him — Tristen did the same, such as the others left him room: he brought Cefwyn reports from the pastures and the armory; he had done that yesterday. And he thought, in his collecting of cheerful things to tell Cefwyn, about telling him about peopleʼs breaths steaming and the air turning cold, but he thought that it was probably much too commonplace a miracle to entertain Cefwyn.

Annas and Idrys gave orders and kept the household in order; servants were lugging water up the stairs and washing everything the smoke had smudged, and it turned out to have coated even walls that looked clean. Cook had the courtyard full of tubs and fires going, while servants brought out the blackened pots and tables to scrub, and a master builder had taken a look at the timbers and masonry of the kitchen and given orders to a number of workmen. A pile of charcoaled pieces from the kitchen timbers fed the fires in the courtyard, and the smell of cooking vied with the lingering smell of smoke.

Wind bore down on the citadel that night, a noisy, cold wind, that had every fire lit and that rattled doors and window-panes, but it seemed innocent. Cefwyn invited him, among others, and sat in front of the fireplace, in a comfortable chair, with his leg propped up, a quilt about him, a cup of wine in his hand, and his friends, as he said, around him: Ninévrisë and Margolis came down, and he and Idrys and Annas were there. Efanor, more quiet than Tristen had ever seen him, came in while Ninévrisë was reading poetry aloud, and sat and listened, before he came and rested his hand on Cefwynʼs arm and in a quiet voice asked him how he fared and wished him and his lady well. The harper entertained them. No one argued. No one mentioned Orien Aswydd. Efanor did not seem comfortable the entire evening, but he was there, and he was resolutely gracious to the lady, who, when he took his leave, early, seized his hands, looked at him and said quite gravely, and in everyoneʼs hearing, “Thank you.”

Efanor did not seem to know how to answer. He turned very red, and held the ladyʼs hands a moment looking at the floor as if he were trying to say something and could not decide what.

Then he said, “My lady,” and left.

Idrys cocked his head with a look at Cefwyn. Cefwyn was looking toward the door — or at Ninévrisë who was looking at the door. Tristen wondered what Efanor had thought of saying, and realized he had held his breath.

On the next day leaves lay thick about the land. Tristen rode Dys out and about the meadows, through an orchard bare-branched and piled with leaves that scattered under Dysʼ huge feet. He on Dys and Uwen on Cass had chased a hare through the meadow and into the brush, and came back with the horses blowing steam into the chilly afternoon air.

And to his surprise and the guardsʼ distress, Cefwyn had come down to the pasture stables. He had ridden Danvy down, followed by a mounted guard. The chill had stung his face, and he was pale, but red-cheeked, and cheerful. “There you are,” he said, and rubbed his leg, if lightly. “Danvy does the walking, fairly sedately, thank you, but far, far less difficult than a sennight ago. I waked this morning feeling very little pain. I wonʼt attempt Kanwy — but Iʼd take a turn out and back with you.”

“Gladly,” Tristen said, and Cefwyn and he and Uwen and the guard rode out a good distance across the sheep-meadow.

“How do you find the young lad?” Cefwyn asked, and Tristen perceived he meant the horse under him.

“Very fine.” He slapped Dys on the neck, and, in truth, if one had asked which was which horse, he could have told Dys from Kanwy, but most could not, he thought. “I do like him. And I do thank you.”

Cefwyn talked to him then about Dysʼ breeding and his line, and how Dys had been foaled on a bitter cold morning. Their breath made clouds. Cefwyn tired quickly, but it seemed to him that Cefwyn was very much better very quickly.

“His Majesty looked good,” Uwen said later, “almost soʼs youʼd say he didnʼt need that stick.”

He was glad of it. But not glad when he visited Emuin directly on his return to the Zeide, and found Emuin scarcely able to wake. He took Emuinʼs hand, and knelt down by him, and said, into Emuinʼs ear, so the good brothers who tended him should not hear: “I know what you did, master Emuin. Cefwyn is mending ever so fast. But you must do something for yourself now. Do you hear me, sir?”

Emuin gave no sign of hearing him. He was very frightened. He thought he ought to be able to do more. He wanted both of them, Cefwyn and Emuin, to be well. Emuin had grown so thin, and his hair was all white now, so that he looked very much like Mauryl. The faces were different, but there was something in him that touched those memories and said, though it was not exactly, every-day true, that there had always been something about Mauryl that shone, and that Emuin had that quality, now.

“Master Emuin,” he said. Emuinʼs hand was very frail, very smooth in his, as if it were becoming like fine silk, like dust on old boards, the way home had felt under his hands, in Ynefel. “Master Emuin. I am here. If there is anything in me that you can use, if thereʼs anything I can give or you can take, and it wonʼt prevent me from what Mauryl sent me to do — I am here. Do you hear me, sir? I want you to mend yourself.”

— Easier said than done, the answer came to him. But it seemed to him then that things grew dimmer, and the lines of the Zeide showed around them, blue, and faint, and brighter, then. He still wants in.

— Inside? he asked. Why inside, sir? Why not do harm to us outside? It was so reasonable a question he wondered he had never asked Mauryl. And why, he wondered, at evening? And why indoors?

— Curious question, Emuin said. What is there about buildings? About houses? Dwellings?

— That people live in them. It was like sitting with Mauryl, the question, the answer. Foolish boy, Mauryl would say. But perhaps his questions had gotten wiser, if not his answers.

— That people live in them, Emuin said ever so faintly, and the lines glowed bright. That we invest something here. That it becomes a Place for us. And we cannot be harmed…in certain ways…while that Place exists for us, even in our dreams. We must violate our own sanctuary, to be harmed…in those ways. But your Place is also his. And his is also yours.

— At Ynefel, you mean, sir.

— At Ynefel, Emuin said. He felt Emuinʼs fingers move, and tighten. I shall hold fast. I have done what I can. I fear what you are. But I shall not cripple you by asking anything or by restraining you. Do what you were Summoned and Shaped to do.

— You fear what I am, sir,…Do you know what I am? Can you at least answer that? Can you warn me what I might do wrong?

— No, Emuin said. I donʼt think I can. I canʼt think of those things. I canʼt foresee…

I cannot begin to foresee the things you invent to do, Mauryl said. Rain in puddles. Rain on the parapets. Flash of lightning. Can you not think of consequences, Tristen? And he had said…I try.

— You have never admitted the enemy to your heart, Emuin said. You have never compromised with him. Never do it. Never do it, boy. Now go away. Donʼt bother me. I have enough to do.

He was in the room again. His foot had gone to sleep. Emuin rested, no worse, no better than he had been. He thought he had heard Maurylʼs voice. Or that he touched what Mauryl was. Or had been.

He rose quietly. The brothers bowed to him in their dutiful way. He bowed to them, and felt the amulet beneath his shirt, the circle that Cefwyn had given him, that Emuin had given Cefwyn. It never showed in the other world. He was only conscious of it now because it had been Emuinʼs, and was a wish for protection.

But he was Emuinʼs protection. He had become Cefwynʼs.

I cannot begin to foresee, Mauryl had said, the things you invent to do.

Think of consequences, Tristen.

The next day likewise dawned with frosting breath and a slick spot in the courtyard where one of the servants slipped and fetched himself a crack on the head that master Haman had to attend, since the lord physician had left in angry disgrace — in attendance on Lord Sulriggan, the rumor was, who had left for his capital, and good riddance, most said.

Cefwyn called a war council for noon, in his apartments. Tristen was hesitant, but Idrys said he should be there, so he came. So did Efanor. And Ninévrisë and Lord Captain Kerdin, and Lord Commander Gwywyn, but none of the Amefin lords, many of whom were at harvest, and no one from Sovragʼs men, who were all over on the river, Cefwyn said, in opening, but they were sending messages by way of the daily couriers from several points, and that he had sent dispatches to the villages and the lords of Amefel.

The dining board bore a stack of small maps, which Idrys said had just arrived last night, which recorded every large rock, every hillock, everything Ninévrisëʼs few men had explored in the area of Lewen plain, north and west of Emwyʼs ruin. Lord Tasien had sent a message to Ninévrisë by way of the Guelen messengers: Lord Tasien said that he had met with rivermen from Lord Sovrag, who had brought supplies downriver, and who had reported a quiet shore: that was the same as Sovragʼs messages had said.

Lord Tasien had also reported in his letter to Ninévrisë that they had made a wall and trench camp that was well begun, with the help of the Amefin peasants who had come up with the wagons. Tasien reported his men under canvas, digging their fortification, and awaiting word from inside Elwynor, and said they had seen no sign of hostile forces on this side of the river.

Efanor shook his head only slightly, perhaps in amazement that they were receiving such a report from the Earl of Cassissan — less charitably estimated, in personal disbelief that Lord Tasienʼs word could be relied upon. But Efanor said nothing, only remarked later and very mildly, for Efanor, that it was very odd, very odd to have a woman in a council of war, but that the Elwynim were very efficient, and seemed to be experienced men — which made Tristen ask himself where the Elwynim had been fighting; but he kept that question to himself.

Efanor in general was on very good behavior. Gwywyn was very proper and made no allusion at all to the doings the night of the fire. He only seemed apprehensive, and increasingly relieved as the meeting went on and his counsel was taken with equal weight with othersʼ.

“Thereʼs a lot thatʼs ashamed of themselves,” Uwen said when he spoke of the meeting later. “What I hear, that night all that business got started there was a gathering over in the Quinaltine, praying and the like, and the lord physician having a tantrum and saying His Majesty was going to die. I think,” Uwen had added, “that the Prince thought His Majesty might have died, on account of the lord physician being sent out. I donʼt doubt the lord physician was a lot of the cause there. And there was priests out talking to the staff, saying that the King was bewitched. Which Iʼd put to nothing, mʼlord, but I donʼt like much that gathers around that priest.”

Then Uwen added another thing that troubled him. “Iʼm Guelen,” Uwen said. “And I seen just a touch too much of Quinalt priests and their politicking. Ainʼt nothing to do with praying. They donʼt like wizards.”

“Why?” Tristen asked.

“On account of the Quinalt says the gods laid down the world the way things are, and wizards meddled with it. They donʼt like ʼem. Meaninʼ they killt no few. Iʼd be just a little careful, mʼlord, and stay clear of ʼem.”

It seemed to him Idrys had warned him much the same. So he told Idrys in private that evening what Uwen had said. And Idrys nodded and said, “His Majestyʼs Guard is well aware of the priest, Lord Warden. Believe me.” Then, unusual for Idrys, Idrys had stopped him for a second word. “It was very well done, Lord Ynefel, that night.”

“Catching Orien, sir?”

“Among other things. I must tell you my mind that evening was on one of Lord Herynʼs partisans. Sorcerous action does not naturally occur to me as a cause.”

“I donʼt think anyone used sorcery against Emuin, sir. I think they had to keep Emuin from seeing them.”

“Seeing them.”

“So to speak, sir. Wizardry might make someone fall on the steps, but I donʼt think Orien could have done it. And certainly sorcery wouldnʼt break someoneʼs skull.”

“Certainly,” Idrys echoed him, and Idrysʼ lean, mustached face was both earnest and troubled. “I fear wizardry encompasses few certainties with me, Lord Warden. What is the likelihood Emuin will be on his feet and with us come the full of the moon?”

“I fear itʼs very little likely, sir. I think heʼs helping Cefwyn most.”

“You are not to say that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So the Aswydd lady had someone attack Emuin.”

“As I think someone moved Orien to do it. Mauryl said it was easy to make things do what they want.”

Idrys was silent a moment. “Is wizardry a consideration, then?”

“Hasufinʼs, yes, sir.”

“Hasufin Heltain?”

“I donʼt know all his name, sir, but he made a bird fly at my window. It killed itself. And in the lower hall, in the banner hall — the lines were almost gone, that protect this place. Emuin brought them back.”

It was deliberate, that confidence, a test he made of Idrys and how far Idrys did see; and Idrys did not exclaim in exasperation or walk away. Idrys only gazed at him steadily. “So has Orien Aswydd flown at the glass, — has she not? What do you recommend we do with her?”

Idrys turned back his test, he thought, whether he had the resolve Idrys thought a lord needed. Cefwyn had not condemned her. Cefwyn had not gotten to that matter. Or Cefwyn shrank from it.

He did. It was one thing on the field. It was another in reasoned thought — to kill. And a lord, he thought, ought to be able to do such things — as Owl had to eat mice.

“Come, sir,” Idrys said. “Do I trouble you? I had thought you unmoved by the ladyʼs charms.”

“At least,” Tristen said, and found his hands shaking, “she should not die as Heryn did.” He nerved himself to say that Idrys was right, and that Orien should die, but then he thought of the lord Regent, who was also a wizard. “But where she is buried, where she dies, she will be like Hasufin. She might ally with him. She would be bound to this place. I think that would be dangerous.”

He had not given Idrys, he thought, what Idrys looked to have. “Persistent, you mean.”

“Sir, as best I understand — she is less a wizard than Auld Syes up at Emwy. Very much less. I think she did very little but let Hasufin in, and perhaps helped him a little. I think she hates us. But I would not let those women together. I would send them all apart, and send them all away from here.”

“Does it run in families?” Idrys asked. “Heryn is buried here.”

It was a disturbing thought. “I have no idea, sir. Heʼd always have a Place here, if I understand it. But I would move him. Bury him among good men. Holy men.”

“Holy men.”

“I think so, sir. That is my advice.”

“Digging up corpses,” Idrys muttered. “Holy men. This is not to my liking, young sir. Not at all. — So wizard me who did this. Who set the fire? Who cracked master Emuinʼs head?”

“Iʼm not a wizard, sir.”

“Just like Emuin. Never the hard questions.” Idrys began to walk away.

“Sir,” Tristen said as an odd recollection came to him. He had spoken. He had Idrysʼ attention. He hesitated, then said: “Lord Sulrigganʼs dish was salty, at the dinner. He was furious at his cook.”

“Was he, now?”

“Cookʼs boys played a prank.” It seemed incredible to him that so small a thing — could do so much harm. “He would have been very angry. And Sulriggan was leaving.”

Idrys drew a long breath. “An angry cook. Well. Well. Sulriggan. — And what of the other, lord of Ynefel? Who struck master Emuin?”

“I donʼt know, sir. That, I truly donʼt know.”

“An Amefin shrine,” Idrys said. “Lord Heryn had his connections. So has Orien. Of various sorts. Youʼve given me enough, lord of Ynefel. Quite enough to serve.”

“But—” A terrible thought came to him. And he had not thought. Idrys had started a third time to leave, and stopped again. “Sir. Orien knows about the lords leaving. She knows about Lewen plain and the full moon — she must have found out.”

“Sulrigganʼs cook, carrying lady Aswyddʼs messages?” Idrys asked. “Hardly likely. And in the wrong direction. A Bryalt priest, now, — or someone connected to him—”

“No, sir. Thatʼs not the point. Lady Aswydd doesnʼt need a messenger. Hasufin needs none. She could have told Hasufin. Hasufin will have told Aséyneddin, across the river. Aséyneddin knows the place. He knows the day. He will move before that, sir. He will cross at Emwy and take Lord Tasienʼs camp. I said it would be the new moon.”

Idrysʼ face had gone very still, expressionless. “Say nothing of this. — However you wizard-folk say such things, keep it to yourself.”

“Sir,” Tristen said, thinking of the bird, and the cook, and how very small things could move, even against their will. “Sir, itʼs as well the lord physician went with Sulriggan.”

“Another damn witch?”

“No, sir. An angry man. Things do what they want to do. But the bird didnʼt want to fly into the glass. If it had wanted to, it would have been easier.”

Idrys did go away, then, quickly, to Cefwyn, he was sure.

He thought that they had very little time, now. For no particular reason he had thought of the new moon.

He remembered Maurylʼs cipherings. The moon-plottings. He had never understood them. But no more did he understand the work of masons or wizards than he ever had. He only knew that something very dire was coming at Amefel, and at Cefwyn, and, now, purposefully, he realized, — at him.

“He said — it would be sooner,” Cefwyn said, and sat down. “Damn. Damn the woman.”

“That would have been my inclination,” Idrys said.

“It would not have prevented this,” Cefwyn said, with all they had been talking about in council — all the figures and estimates of supply and logistics — tumbling through his head. “Why did Emuin not perceive this going on, if Tristen didnʼt?”

“I could not possibly guess,” Idrys said, “save that master grayfrock showed no enthusiasm for wizarding. Perhaps he didnʼt — whatever wizards do. Perhaps lady Orien didnʼt — whatever mʼlord Tristen thinks she did: whatever Tristen does: talk to passing birds, or hear it from the frogs, or whatever. This is far beyond my competency, mʼlord King, but Tristenʼs chancy warnings have in the past been of some weight.”

“I should have heard this one,” Cefwyn said. “I told him not to speak. I tried to silence him in council, thinking him—”

“Feckless?”

“Innocent.” The room seemed stifling. He rubbed the leg, which was both sore and itched devilishly with healing, asking himself whether he was remotely fit, and distractedly adding in the back of his mind the same figures they had added in council, and wondering if three days was enough to see him more fit than he was — and the baggage train delivered to Lewenside. Fear crept in — the sensible sort, that said there were additional troubles, of the sort he could have expected.

“Did I not say—” Idrys began.

“Oh, you often said, master crow. And I listened too little.”

“He is still the mooncalf. But on the field he seems to have a very clear understanding. He comprehends in council. He says Orien alive or dead should not remain here. That her brother should not be buried here. Nor anyone of great animosity. He seems to imply — though I was already past my understanding — that anyone of animosity, wizard or not, could be moved by a wizard to act against us.”

“Good loving gods, there are grudges. There will be grudges.”

“That was my impression. It may be incorrect. But he was definite about two things: first, that, through Orien, Aséyneddin knows our plans, which may include, I would surmise, lord Hauryddʼs mission into Elwynor, and that fortification at Emwy, and the day on which we plan to move. And second, that Orien Aswydd and Heryn must move — Heryn to holy ground.”

“Holy ground. Heryn!”

Idrys held up a languid hand. “I assure my lord, it is not my fancy.”

“He said the lord Regent had to remain at Althalen. That he came there to die.”

“We are contending with the dead, mʼlord King. Iʼd take the advice of one who should know.”

Cefwyn drew a deep breath and shook his head. And had a chilling thought. “The skulls from over the gates. Send those with Heryn Aswydd — to the same interment. Tonight.”

“What a wagonload,” Idrys said. “The Aswydds — and their victims.”

“It seems due. Light the signal fires and pass the word. Iʼll have written messages — for my brother, for Tristen, for my lady, — for Sovrag, on the river. They should go out together. But meanwhile, light the fires.”

Tristen sat by the window in the early night, with the Book shut in his hands and saw the fires — one after the other, on the hills. A single glance at the writing had shown him he knew no more than before. Then the fires had begun to go. And Uwen came in, his face aglow with the cold wind, cheerful — until Uwen looked at him.

“Mʼlord?” Uwen asked.

“We are moving,” Tristen said. “Itʼs come.”

Uwen caught a breath, shrugged off his cloak, and tucked it over his arm. “Has His Majesty said?”

“The fires. Do you see them?”

Uwen came near the window and looked out into the dark. “Seems as if the lords is hardly had time to take their boots off,” Uwen said, and went and put his cloak on the bench. “So there ainʼt no putting that away.”

“I told Cefwyn what I should have realized sooner — when I knew about Orien Aswydd — that they would know. I should have seen it. I should have understood.”

“They. They — the Elwynim.”

“Aséyneddin.”

“Yeʼre saying Aséyneddin knows.”

“The day. The place. Lord Tasien is in very great danger.”

“Can ye — warn him, wizardlike?”

“I donʼt think even Emuin could. And he — far more likely. I should have known, Uwen. I should have seen it.”

“Yeʼve had summat to occupy your thoughts, mʼlord.”

It was Uwenʼs duty to cheer him. It was his to take Uwen into more danger than Uwen knew how to reckon, and it was his not to upset Uwen, or to spread fear around him to his staff and the army. He tried to gather his wits, and his composure.

But that he did not know, and had not known in a timely way indicated more than the reason Uwen gave; wizardry had not provided him the answer in a timely way, and Words had not unfolded to him. The blind, trusting way in which he had ridden off to Althalen, expecting things to become clear, had not worked, with devastating implication that they might not work in future. He felt betrayed, in some measure, betrayed and not knowing what else might fall out from under him.

But, moved to fling the Book with violence onto the table — he did not. He laid it down carefully. “I must take this. Above all, Uwen. Donʼt let me leave it behind. I give nothing for my ability to remember anything.” His hands were trembling. He rested the one on the table, hoping Uwen failed to notice. “I have let slip very important things. Or important things have escaped me.”

“Fact is,” Uwen said, “weʼre mostly ready, mʼlord. I donʼt deny Iʼm a little surprised. I expected a few more days, perhaps, but not beyond. And you watch: weʼll get up there and weʼll sit and wait. Iʼve seen the like of this before. — Ye could do with a cup of tea, maybe.”

“I might,” he said, and Uwen went over, poked up the embers, and swung the kettle over.

But while he was doing it, the servants let in one of Cefwynʼs young pages, a grave-faced boy with a sealed note for him.

It said, in a hasty hand, My dear friend, we are going. Wagons move tonight. The signal fires are lit, on your advisement. Do not hesitate to give me further thoughts you may have. I should have heeded your warning in council. Do not think that I shall fail to heed another one. Advise your household. In the second watch, be prepared to bring baggage down to the wagon at the west doors.

My Household, he thought — like a Word showing itself in all its shapes. His Household was Uwen, and the servants, all of whom had declared they would go into the field with him; and the guards of several watches, that were assigned to him. There were the horses and their accoutrements, and the staff that managed all that. Master Peyganʼs boys had brought his armor and shield and Uwenʼs to the apartment a day ago as they had brought all the lordsʼ gear to have it handled by the lordsʼ own staffs; and they were supposed to have sent all horse-gear down to Aswys this afternoon, to store in the pasture-stablesʼ armory, where there was more room than up on the citadel; but the citadel armory kept the lances and other such in its adjacent buildings. There had to be one wagon, he had discovered, only to carry his servants, his tent, his equipment, and there had to be drivers, which Uwen had added only yesterday, whose names he did not even know; and besides all that, besides the horses they would ride, and their gear, and Dys and Cass, that Aswys cared for — there were water-buckets and grain for the horses, including the horses to pull the wagon, and everything sufficient for the number of days it took to send and resupply them from Henasʼamef — the whole tally was enormous. He knew all the pieces of it.

Except finding a standard-bearer. And the standard was important, even if he had only seventeen soldiers, counting Uwen, in all his company, who needed to find it on the field. He knew Cefwyn intended it be carried conspicuously, because of what it was — and someone had to carry it, which was not far different from a death sentence. Aséyneddin would want to bring it down early.

“The standard,” he said on a deep breath. And Uwen said, with his ordinary calm, “Not your trouble, mʼlord. Weʼll find somebody. Is that the order?”

“We are going, my lord?” Tassand asked — the servants had come into the bedchamber doorway, following the page, and stood there, four solemn faces, as gentle, as modest, as kindhearted a set of men as he had ever dealt with. “Is it now?”

“Yes,” he said. It seemed that the floor dropped away from under him, as, with that one word — he ordered everything into motion, and every choice that he had, or imagined he had had — was gone.

Or begun. He was not certain.

“No sleep for us tonight,” Uwen said cheerfully. “Doze in the wagon, we will, or ahorse, or wherever, tomorrow. Iʼll tell Lusin he can go down in the cold and the wind and rouse out the drivers. This damn little courtyard, weʼll have wagons atop each other if we donʼt move fast. Tassand, letʼs get it moving. — Lad,” he said to the page, who still waited, “I donʼt think mʼlord has a reply, except heʼs ready and weʼre going.”

The fires are lit, the note had said, because Idrys had told Cefwyn his fears regarding Orien — and on that surmise the message to summon the lords and the villages was flaring across the land not as quickly as wizards could warn one another, but still as fast as men could light fires, and as fast as the lords could turn around and come back again, only scarcely arrived and with no time to prepare — but this time traveling without wagons.

At least, he said to himself, at least and in spite of his tardiness even to think what assumptions must change once he knew what Orien had done — Cefwyn had implicitly believed him. But wizardry had failed him, or he had failed, perhaps because of failing with the Book, perhaps simply that the wizardry working against them was stronger, he had no idea.